The Liberty needed a few jet planes and a boat to become a super team
In January, Clara Wu Tsai flew to Turkey for a trip that changed the balance of power in the WNBA
Wu Tsai, who co-owns the Liberty with her husband, Joe Tsai, headed there to pursue Breanna Stewart, the off-season’s most coveted free agent. Accompanied by her team’s coach and general manager, Wu Tsai Stewart pitched with a team in Istanbul in the middle of her Euroleague season.
But Wu Tsai left the rest of the team behind when she made the final push. She rented a 25-foot tour boat and took Stewart, Stewart’s wife, Marta Xargay, and the couple’s 1-year-old daughter, Ruby, on a cruise. While floating through the Bosphorus, Wu Tsai reeled in Stewart, the league’s two-time most valuable player, with questions.
“It was just her curiosity that grabbed me,” Stewart told me during an interview this month. “She wanted to know what I needed, what we needed as players to perform at our best. I could tell she wanted to improve the league as much as I did.
After days of cryptic tweetsStewart announced on February 1 that she would be joining a Liberty roster that also added 2021 league MVP Jonquel Jones to play alongside guard Sabrina Ionescu, a 2022 All-Star. The four-time All- Star guard Courtney Vandersloot signed with the team the day after Stewart, forming a mega team built to compete against the defending champion Las Vegas Aces—a super team in its own right that two-time MVP Candace Parker added this-season.
“Having a lot of players go to different teams is great because it shakes things up where we’re not just on this continuous circuit, running over and over and playing for the same teams,” said Stewart. “It creates a buzz. But there’s more. Free agency also puts pressure on owners to compete for us.”
The Tsais, whose multibillion-dollar wealth comes primarily from Joe’s leadership role at Chinese tech giant Alibaba, are at the forefront of the WNBA’s free-agent arms race, where players enjoy the attention of a group of team owners eager to invest.
In Atlanta, the Dream’s Larry Gottesdiener, founder of a real estate private equity firm, said he planned to spend $100 million to make the team a success. Mark Davis, who also owns the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, recently built a 64,000-square-foot training facility for the Aces and last season signed Coach Becky Hammon to a $1 million-a-year recording contract. (On Tuesday, the WNBA suspended Hammon for two games over comments she made to All-Star forward Dearica Hamby about her pregnancy, which the league said violated its workplace respect policy. The league also announced the 2025 of revoked the team’s first round draft pick for promising Hamby impermissible advantages during contract negotiations.)
When the Tsais purchased the Liberty in 2019, the team had hit rock bottom during the final stages of James Dolan’s ownership. The franchise had made the finals in three of the WNBA’s first four seasons, but was ousted from Madison Square Garden to the 2,300-seat Westchester County Center for 2017 and ’18.
After moving the team to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which is owned by the Tsais and where their other team—the NBA’s Nets—plays, the pair wanted to give the Liberty the same amenities as their male counterparts. There is a performance staff of eight: several trainers, a sports psychologist and a nutritionist. A private chef prepares meals before and after training and competitions. Players recover in brand new hot and cold therapy pools.
Like every other team in the WNBA, the Liberty flies away advertising for most of the season. They are huddled in cramped seats and, like all of us, deal with delays, transfers and cancellations.
Tsai was shocked by the restriction. So in 2021, he paid for the Liberty to use private jets, then shielded that fact from the league until the team got caught. The result: a $500,000 fine, the highest in league history. Perhaps unrelated, in 2021 the Liberty made the playoffs for the first time in five years and repeated that feat in 2022.
The fine was heavy, but the Tsais made a point loud and clear: travel conditions must evolve. For now, the league has made a partial change, allowing teams to charter flights for the playoffs and a small number of games during the regular season.
It was a major point of agreement between Wu Tsai and Stewart during that nautical conversation. Stewart, a vice president of the players’ union, is also one of the league’s most outspoken supporters of charter flights, a factor she says played a role in her decision on free agency.
Over coffee at a Manhattan restaurant in early May, Wu Tsai — a self-described “hoop head” who grew up in Lawrence, Kan. – that she sees a kindred spirit in Stewart. “It was clear that our interests were aligned with the potential” for dissolving the Liberty and changing the WNBA, Wu Tsai said.
When asked about the travel contretemps with the league, Wu Tsai paused, took a deep breath and carefully measured her remarks. “I don’t think you can market your best product if you’re not really focused on health and wellness,” she said, without elaborating.
It should be noted that the Tsais have a complex history. Few team owners in any sport have given so much support to social justice, including $50 million to boost economically distressed communities following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. But Alibaba has been criticized for business ties to Chinese companies allegedly violating human rights in China. And Tsai once called pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong a “separatist movement,” echoing language from Beijing.
The sports world is hardly immune to contradictions.
What can also be said about the Tsais is that support for the way they promote conditions in the league is widespread among players. The issue of charter aircraft is perhaps the most glaring litmus test. Stewart, for example, would only play for a team that is committed to pushing the issue until it becomes a reality all season long.
She’s not alone.
“Two things can be true at the same time,” Jones said. “You can look at it and see what they did with those charters as an absolute unfair advantage. And you can also take a step back and say, “Wow, at least they made sure their players were taken care of.” The Tsais have sent a signal, a strong signal, of how much this means to them.”
“They treat us like the professionals we are.”